“The Wayward Regional Transmissions” reviewed by Blow Up

Ran Slavin è un artista multimediale di Tel Aviv che si occupa di musica, cinema, video arte e installazioni; ne ricordiamo un buon CD qualche tempo fa ma ha prodotto soprattutto lavori per performance live e d’arte contemporanea. In “The Wayward Regional Transmissions” presente otto trace in cui media perfettamente estetica avant-glitch e folk mediorientale; non pensiate perè ai glitch-pop e glitch-folk tanto in voga qualche anno fa. Qui tutto è estremamente sommesso e intimista, la catarsi elettronica è un mero strumento attraverso cui si lasciano evaporare campioni di corde (e, in un paio di pezzi, sublimi straniti vocalizzi femminili) che ondeggiano come odalische in uno spazio aperto, desertico, annichilito da un caldo soffocante. Solo a tratti le ritmiche prendono corpo (DAT Beats) ma anche allora tutto è funzionale alla rappresentazione di un universo in cui ipermodernità e tradizione si sfocano e sfumano, quasi metafora di quel conflito tra spinte al futuro e dolorosi rigurgiti della memoria che affligge le civiltà di quelle terre

Stefano I. Bianchi

“Hidden Name” reviewed by Chain DLK

After meeting at the MUTEK Festival in 2002, sharing the bills on various festivals all over the world and a previous collaborative effort in 2003 along with Radbound Mens and Timeblind (“Quality Hotel” out on the Mutek label), Stephan Mathieu and Janeck Schaefer decided to spend some days together in the home of a classical composer in the English countryside and there they recorded a huge amount of material that they later reprocessed and assembled in York Music Research Center. Basically Mathieu plays all the instruments and Schaefer does all the field recordings and in most of the tracks you can recognize both artist’s distinctive trademarks but sometimes the symbiosis works so well and results in a new, unorthodox glitch-psychedelia. The highlight here is the sixth track called “Quartet for Flute, Piano and Cello”, where you can hear pops and crackles of a worn-out vinyl over a complex sound patchwork somehow resembling Ehlers’ “Plays” series. Due to its amazing sound quality it surely sounds better through loudspeakers rather than headphones. Recommended.

Andrea Vercesi

“The Wayward Regional Transmissions” reviewed by Goddeau

Kort na de Tweede Wereldoorlog suste Europa zijn geweten door een opgejaagd volk eindelijk zijn land terug te geven. Dat land, zo liet een oud en heilig boek weten, behoorde hen toe omdat hun God het hen geschonken had. Dat die grond intussen door iemand anders ingenomen was, was niet meer dan een vervelend euvel dat dra uit de weg zou worden geruimd.

Een slordige zestig jaar later is dat euvel nog steeds niet verholpen en worden begrippen als “martelaar”, “terrorist” en “legitieme verdediging” met in bloed gedrenkte woorden geschreven. Het onbegrip, de woede en de haat die aan beide kanten blijven opflakkeren vinden hun weg naar het dagelijkse leven en worden nu en dan vertaald naar geschriften en andere kunstuitingen. De vraag stellen of het ook maar iets betekent, is ze cynisch beantwoorden.

Op The Wayward Regional Transmissions stelt Ran Slavin ze toch, zij het verborgen en omfloerst. De audiovisuele kunstenaar confronteert op dit album traditie met moderniteit en laat ze in een utopische dialoog met elkaar treden. In niet minder dan de helft van de nummers (“Village”, “Wayward Initial”, “The Silence” en “Hagali”) werkt Slavin samen met Ahuva Ozeri, die in Israël bekend werd met haar traditionele klaagliederen in de traditie van Mizrahit-muziek. Maar het dagelijkse leven in Tel Aviv sluipt duidelijk binnen, want maar al te vaak weerklinkt in de nummers de grimmige realiteit.

Glitch en electro domineren “Village” zo sterk dat elke verzoeningspoging tussen Slavin en Ozeri op voorhand dreigt te mislukken. In de andere nummers weten beide stijlen elkaar echter wel te vinden en is er sprake van een echte kruisbestuiving. Zo ademt “Wayward Initial” paranoia en vervreemding uit, niet ondanks maar dankzij Ozeri, en klinkt “Hagali” op een hedendaagse manier net heel tijdloos. Ook “The Silence” weet met zijn vervreemdende karakter te boeien, en de klanken die Ozeri uit de bulbul tarang (een Indisch snaarinstrument) weet te halen, vloeien wonderwel over in Slavins clicks and cuts.

Moshe Eliahu tracht in “Jericho 6 AM” met een ud iets gelijkaardigs te verwezenlijken maar hier is de grootsteedse angst te sterk aanwezig om aandacht te besteden aan iets anders dan kille electro. Wanneer Eliahu ten langen leste toch gehoor krijgt, klinkt zijn stem zo ver weg dat alleen de echo nog weerklinkt. Nergens anders weet Slavin het onbestemde gevoel van een constante dreiging beter op te roepen: het geluidentapijt barst van de motieven maar geen van hen schreeuwt luidkeels om aandacht. Elke gil weerklinkt alleen binnen het eigen hoofd.

In schril contrast hiermee staat het opgejaagde en opgefokte “Kiosk In Furadis”, dat een popsong door de mangel haalt in wat klinkt als een frenetiek switchen tussen pop, drum ’n bass en statische ruis. “Shelters And Peace” daarentegen grossiert in onbestemde geluiden en klikkende ritmes. Het nummer zweert bij de herhaling van leidmotieven die op een afwisselende geluidssterkte en toonhoogte te horen zijn. “DAT Beats” haalt een gelijkaardige tour de force uit maar gooit er schijnbaar willekeurig allerlei stoorzenders en vaag herkenbare geluiden (vooral stemmen) tussen.

Het werk van Ran Slavin floreert vooral binnen de besloten en veilige kunstwereld, en ook The Wayward Regional Transmissions richt zich in de eerste plaats op die doelgroep. Maar net zoals het een illusie was om te geloven dat de staat Israël zich zonder kleerscheuren zou oprichten, is het naïef om te geloven dat Slavin in zijn cocon kon blijven functioneren. Bedoeld of niet, Slavins werk kan niet worden losgekoppeld van de dagelijkse onzekerheid die zijn thuisland teistert. Het geeft aan The Wayward Regional Transmissions onbewust een meerwaarde, ten goede of ten kwade.

Jurgen Boel

“The Wayward Regional Transmissions” reviewed by The Wire

Sound/video artist Ran Slavin, an Israeli, uses aerial photography of the Middle East as a visual underpinning to The Wayward Regional Transmissions, which follows last year’s Insomniac City CD + DVD release on Mille Plateaux. Apart from the hint offered in the title “Shelters and Peace”, there is very little sense of the political strife in the region. This is more a warped and filtered celebration of its topographical virtues, folk traditions and general aromas. “Jericho 6AM”, featuring the oud of Moshe Eliahu, conveys, in its distant drones and sampled folk, a pregnant and palpable sense of the heady emptiness of dawn, creating an atmosphere you can almost reach out and bite. “Village” is built around the traditional bulbul tarang of Ahura Ozeri, as is “Wayward Initial”, Techno-cubistic takes on this instrument otherwise known as the ‘Indian banjo’. “Dat Beats” could be seen as an “elaboration” on a more famous exploration of this particular audio subject matter — CAbaret Voltaire’s Three Mantras.

David Stubbs

“Hidden Name” reviewed by De-Bug

Aufgenommen wurde diese Zusammenarbeit in dem Landhaus eines englischen Komponisten, der den beiden Musikern auch eine große Sammlung an klassischen und exotischen Musikinstrumenten und Schallplatten zur Verfügung stellte. Zusätzlich machten die beiden Aufnahmen von Soundscapes in der Umgebung. Das Ergebnis ist ein äußerst entspanntes elegisches Album geworden, das mit Drones und Ambiences arbeitet, Klavierminiaturen, konkreten Klängen aber auch mit Loops verkratzter Schellacks, Bearbeitungen von “Maori Love Songs” und puren Naturaufnahmen.

“Hidden Name” reviewed by Sonic Arts Network

Lonely spinning giants from the experimental scene ™: German Stephan Mathieu and English Janek Schaefer share their common interest of devouring a manicured history of pasty white memories and a soup of gossamer sounds, on “Hidden Names”.

Recorded during the winter of 2005 in a Victorian void in the South of England (Manor Farm House located in Child Okeford), the two locked horns and kicked around the empty house. Amongst sun yellowed picture frames, scent heavy doors, rose coloured walls they made field recordings and used old records found in the attic of the house. They took a week to make this collection of heavenly orchestrated noise, of crackling hidden melodies which tease out of the cloth of the speakers like Lazarus resurrected.

Nostalgia bleeds and feeds in these 11 pieces.

“White Wings” is a whirl of topes that cut off the world, making it a disastrous thing to stop listening, just in case that these wires might send the heart a message of WHY. The Victorian void of enlightenment is cascaded further on “Comos”. This is a sound piece that creates a vision of a fleshly aviation menagerie, a bird version of Waco. Clashing pigeons, cooing sweeps, set against crows cawing, and roosters calling for an end to all mankind with its misunderstanding of bird flu and the cull that ensued. The birds here are Hitchcockian and non fading.

“Quartet for Flute, Piano and Cello” is a love song for the most unrequited moments in a lost room. Its see through fingers glide over ancient vinyl recordings, attic dust, and an automatic invisible turntable. It cements the territory that was pinned out previously as it confidently strides under black umbrellas instead of the silent tip toeing giggled at before. Amazing.

“Maori Love Song” is a jazz funeral for Mary Shelly trapped in a cryogenic cell as Walt Disney tries to romance her with puppet strings.

We are left squinting at the last track “The Planets”. This camouflages a sunrise under the atmospheres of individual working methodologies, and looks back at a time gone by when the sun on Albion was pure, the breeze contained no fear and men like Xavier De Maistre journeyed around their room; internal explorer becomes external tourist.

Clearly this is a device of time travel disguised as a CD.

“The Wayward Regional Transmissions” reviewed by Bad Alchemy

Wie abstrakt und digital zermahlen auch immer, Slavin macht hörbar, dass Israel auch ein orientalisches Land ist. Wesentlich für den Eindruck sind Samples der Bulbultarangspielerin Ahuva Ozeri, einer Oud und von ‘arabeskem’ Radiopopgedudel. Ozeri ist etwas besonderes, eine Virtuosin der indischen Brettzither, eine populäre Singer-Songwriterin der Musiqah Mizrahit, von ihrem Debut Hechan Hachayal 1975 bis zu Behibak & A Golden Key 2005, eine Frau, die sich in einer Männerdomäne durchsetzte. Aufgewachsen im Kerem Hateimanin-Viertel im Süden von Tel Aviv, pflegt sie den ‘souligen’, aber meist Männern vorbehaltenen traditionellen Klagegesang, der in Israel im Gegensatz steht zu Shirei eretz Israel und zum ‘Mediterranen’ Stil. Ein fundamentaler Ost-West-Gegensatz von Ashkenzi einerseits und yemenitischen, griechischen, arabischen, persischen und türkischen Wurzeln andererseits, der mit Zündstoff reich bestückt ist. Gerade Ozeris Instrumentalsound zu zermörsen, um seine ‘westliche’ und laptopelitäre Hightech-Muszak orientalisch zu würzen, zeugt für Slavins Sinn für Paradoxes. Er scheint aber solche Vexationen zu mögen. Luftaufnahmen von Haifa und der Judäischen Wüste als Illustrationen spielen nämlich ebenfalls mit einem Kippeffekt, dem von Blicken aus der Lufthansatouristenklasse und von den Satellitenphotos, die Raketenziele kartografieren. Wenn der Strand von Tel Aviv verlassen daliegt, dann nur wegen dem schlechen Wetter ? Slavins Klangbänder sind zithrig, zittrig, stottrig mäandernde, perkussiv vertrackte Projektionsfolien für gemischte Gefühle und gleichzeitig ein Postulat, mehr zu mischen – etwa zu einer Oriental Abstract Spiritual Music.

“The Wayward Regional Transmissions” reviewed by ei magazine

The Wayward Regional Transmissions, though of a fascinating genesis, might be taken as an act of cultural appropriation. Conceived as a function of its unwaning reproduction, another element—Oriental Middle Eastern Music —is exhumed and takes a whirl around the Mobieus strip. There is a certain pleasure in all this promiscuous play, though. And, as it happens, Ran Slavin does not simply embrace a soggy eclecticism, but often crafts a vibrant gestural language from these disparate musical surfaces. The medium may be the message, then, but at this point, the content still manipulates it so as to relay some subtle effects. Opener “Village” erects a malleable, unpredictable surface, stimulated by a kaleidoscope of shifting instrumental colors and the raucous yet restrained ebullience of Slavin’s digital clicks and stutters. A welter of other tracks favor slowly morphing repetitions and a faint rhythmic sensibility; others opt to juxtapose shimmering textures with the crisp virtuosic attacks of Ahuva Ozeri, who lends the voice of her three-steel string indian instrument, the Bulbul Tarang, to many of Slavin’s compositions. On “Shelters And Peace,” if only for brief moments, the Bulbul Tarang peeks through the processing and exudes a ritualistic aura, yet even then, carefully placed against the queasy loops, slowly extended harmonic explorations and placid tones, it dwells on another plane, one devoid of oxygen, where its many copies serve to render them all artificial and which open the door to numerous reconfigurations. On the other hand, these elements from Oriental Middle Eastern undeniably gives Slavin much to play with—and that he does, having them snake and swirl through the seismic force of his programming, adding many shades and creating a rhapsodic aura. Slavin isn’t exactly showing disrespect to these traditions, but, much the way most everything is now commutable into computer terms, he is trying to sow them into the fabric of his own musical language. Over the course of the album, these elements enter the eternity of artificial memory—a utopia where Oriental Middle Eastern music and abstract electronica exist amiably—and they look strangely at home there.

Max Schaefer

“Hidden Name” reviewed by Boomkat

‘Two heads are better than one’, I think that’s how the saying goes, and it’s never been more appropriate than here on this devastating collaborative effort from two of the most respected ‘heads’ in experimental music. Stephan Mathieu has been chiselling out a name for himself on the ‘laptop experimental’ scene for a good few years now, giving some warmth and heart to an icy-cold genre, and Janek Schaefer has been equally as caring with the world of turntable-based drone, but it’s here where they finally come up with their finest and most perfect moment. ‘Hidden Name’ was recorded in the summer of 2005 at their friend John Tavener’s house in the rural south of England, and if ever a collection of music could represent a time and a place this is it. Although the sounds might be processed beyond all recognition for the most part, the dewy atmosphere of grassy Blighty permeates through every note; you can smell the buttercups and the apple trees, hear the rustle of a dog playing in the bushes and hear birds flying overhead squawking at each other angrily. Mostly made up of processed drones, using Taveners selection of instruments as source material along with a box of old records found in the attic, it is hard for me to believe how much emotion is compressed into such a traditionally avant-garde form. Maybe it might be down to the first time I heard the album – half asleep on a couch in Portugal having been deprived of rest for a good few days I was slipping in and out of reality with ‘Hidden Name’ as my spirit guide. The album became almost fused with my experience, and when the dense soup of drones broke in the middle to allow for peaceful environmental recordings before jumping into the final act it was like the heavens themselves had opened. This is an incredible record and easily one of the best of its kind – drone fans don’t sleep, you might not have seen this hyped all over the internet but my my it’s something truly special indeed. Essential purchase!

“The Wayward Regional Transmissions” reviewed by Indietronica

Les débats politiques aidant, ces dernières semaines ont vu apparaître une nouvelle tendance que l’on pensait appartenir à un temps révolu : celle du nationalisme, du repli sur soi et du conformisme. Fort heureusement pour nous (amateurs avertis de musique que nous sommes), ces notions nous semblent abstraites et désuètes car l’une des grandes qualités de la musique est son métissage, sa capacité à se confronter à de multiples courants et à se recycler sans cesse pour créer de nouveaux espaces sonores. C’est dans cet état d’esprit que s’inscrit la dernière oeuvre de Ran Slavin.

Originaire de Tel Aviv, Ran Slavin est artiste protéiforme tout à la fois artiste vidéaste, cinéaste et musicien. Avec son dernier projet The Wayward Regional Transmissions, il explore une nouvelle voie : celle de la confrontation entre musiques traditionnelles orientales et électronique par le biais d’accidents numériques ou d’ajouts de gimmicks aléatoires. Uniques et sensorielles, les structures du compositeur israélien s’apparentent à d’immenses paysages souvent désertiques où les collaborations croisées de Ahura Ozerri (Bulbultarang – instrument à cordes venant d’Indes) et de Moshe Eliaha (Oud) servent de trames de fonds, sur lesquelles viennent s’ajouter par couches ou par ruptures des éléments électroniques disparates. Le tout forme un mélange foisonnant et méditatif, une musique en aucune autre pareille, un musique du futur toute emprunte de passé, une musique sans frontière, une musique libre de tout carcan où l’auditeur surpris puis émerveillé se laisse porter vers ses paysages sonores abstraits. L’une des meilleures découvertes du moment.

Dr Bou